Raze ~ ch 8!

  Hi guys! Thanks for a great weekend with Eternium! If you wouldn't mind doing me a huge favor, could you could pop over to amazon and leave a great review on geni.us/DungeonEternium ? More great reviews on my books mean that more people will read them, which turns into the possibility of movies/anime/video games! Much love!

“Welcome back, team!” Jessamyn waved at the group as they walked into the… town. Town might have been a trong term, since only the Pathfinder’s Hall and buildings made after the explosion were currently standing. “I took the liberty of joining the guild using Joe’s ‘add one person to the guild no questions asked’ ability as a party leader!”

“Excuse me?” Joe stopped short, his face thunderous and becoming red. “How did you even…? You had no right to…!”

Jess hurried to explain her other activities. “Also, Joe! Yes! I managed to file all the missing paperwork that the guild had been waiting on! I hope you all don't mind, but I signed the tax forms for you and got all the fines for non-payment taken care of with the explanation of the war. So, all of you got all the backpay you had been waiting on, a nice bonus from an award ‘Joe’ recommended you all for, and have a few offered quests pulled up for you all to look at!”

Joe waited a moment, gauging the proper reaction to this situation, and stepped close to her. “Never use my authority in the future for something I don't actually agree to, and where would you like your pay and a very large starting bonus to go?”

“Sorry, I just- wait.” Jess smiled at him, and Joe allowed his expression to soften into a smile as well. “Nice. Well, you’ll never have to worry about the standard paperwork again.”

“For that alone, your bonus is getting larger.” Joe promised as they all started walking again. “What do you have for us in the way of quests?”

“Oh, about that. Aten wanted you to come and meet with him? Like, now.” Jess pulled out a few other notes, and placed one carefully on top. “I’m pretty sure that he wants you to work on this one.”

Reading the quest, Joe shook his head and grunted. The guild was looking for a way to rebuild the town, but the trouble was that they were paying for the work with contribution points. “I’m betting that they aren’t getting many takers, are they? Alright, let's go see Aten. This should be a trip. Hey, team? If he tries to guilt trip us into doing work for free or reduced cost, what do we answer with?”

Alexis answered after a long moment of awkward silence. “I think the answer you're looking for is ‘no’? Are you trying to get us to chant or something?”

“Forget it.” Joe rolled his eyes and continued skipping along at a walking pace. They got near the new guild building, joe smirking as he saw a team of people on the roof adding shingles to the structure. “Should have put those on the blueprint. Heh.”

They walked to a large room people were running into and out of at speed. They entered with papers, left with papers, and all of them had a harried look on their face. Joe nearly got trampled twice, and only a timely intervention by Poppy kept him from being knocked over. When they finally got through the door, they all felt out of place in the organized chaos of the workspace. Mike, the guild vice-leader, was standing and orchestrating movement through the area. This was vastly different from a typical or conventional office, mainly due to things needing to be physical copies with a personal signature. 

When Aten saw Joe, he called for a cessation of activities, and a line instantly began to form at the door. Aten waved them forward right away, near-panic on his face. “Conversation as short as possible! Huge, unfortunate issues. Ardania is getting swamped by new people joining the world, and there are already starting to be massive issues with any supply at all. Thanks to your advice on the matter, we had started buying up all the rare resources that we thought we would need, but I’m sorry to say that economist convinced our buyers to skimp, not really thinking that there would be supply issues for a long time.”

“Now we are missing a bunch of basic supplies?” Joe guessed, getting a nod in reply. “What are we looking at here? Food, building material?”

“Yes,” was the only answer, “we have all sorts of rare junk that people will need for advanced gear, but there aren’t enough basics top even sustain our own people for two weeks without rationing. So, I wanted to offer a quest to our problem solvers.”

Aten made a gesture, and a notification appeared in front of Joe and his entire team.

Guild Quest offered: Feed the people! With the massive influx of travelers, and even more on the way, there isn’t nearly enough to go around. Find a way to sustain a population of at least 10,000 people, and put it in place. Reward: Guild contribution points. Accept? Yes / No

“Nope.” Joe waved away the message and shook his head. “There is no way that I'm taking five people on a trip to who knows where, looking for… what? Trade routes? Items? There isn't even a set… what would I be looking for? And contribution points as a reward? So, find a way to feed ten thousand people in return for something with no value? Why don’t we just find a way into the next area?”

“The next area is still locked off, and I have it on good authority that we will be far too weak for that place.” Aten’s words brought a vision of a Goblin swinging a club at him into Joe’s mind. “Frankly, Joe, we need to get this in place, and everyone else is still working out how to deal with their own issues. We need sustainable resources. Not everyone is taking being trapped here as well as you are. Do you really want our whole guild to starve to death over and over? Everyone is needed for their own tasks, and I think that this is something you are suited to doing.”

Joe was already shaking his head. “Nope. I’m calling bull on this. I also have a clause in our contract that lets me refuse to do something that I think is unfair, and you know it. That’s why we have this guilt trip going on. Make it worth our while, Aten. Give us details, a specific goal, and currency that matters. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep doing our own thing and rocking it. Grabbed a salt mine, by the way. One of those sustainable resource centers that the guild needs, and we’d be happy to hand it over to the guild for a cut of the proceeds.”

Aten narrowed his eyes. “I’ll double the contribution points for this quest, and I can give you two percent of whatever we get out of the salt mine. We need to supply all the people for the work, and we still need to make a profit.”

“Yes to the salt mine, still no to the quest.” Joe returned instantly. “Double the points? Multiplying two by zero is still zero. It doesn’t even list how many points are offered, just ‘contribution points’.”

Aten rolled his eyes and seemed to be typing at thin air. “There. Five thousand contribution points for the quest.”

So the thousand when you double the ficticios currency?” Joe asked innocently.

Aten ground his teeth and growled, “I suppose that is what it will come out to, yes.”

“Then still no, unless you have something that shows what the points are worth. Things that I could buy with them.” Joe demanded on behalf of his group.

“Are you sure you want to play it this way, Joe?” Aten asked with narrow eyes.

“Tell you what, Aten.” Joe held his hands out to his sides. “I’ll give you twenty thousand Joe points if you build me a mansion and fill it with beautiful artwork.”

Aten cocked his head and blinked. “What’s the ratio of Joe points to contribution points?”

“The same ratio as leprechauns to unicorns.” Joe returned serenely. “If you want work done, you need to offer something real in return. We all have our own game we want to play, Aten. Show me what these points are worth, and we’ll talk.”

“Alright, Joe. I guess it’s time to bring in the big guns.” Aten made a motion, and a small section of the room was unveiled. Joe paled and whirled on the guild leader. 

“You brought my mother here?”

“Joe!” His mother stood up and shook her head. “I thought I raised you better than this. You have a chance to keep a lot of people from starving, and you should be jumping on the chance even if you won’t get anything worthwhile out of the guild!”

“Mom! I thought I was-” Joe tried to defend himself, but a hand in the air made him stop speaking right away.

“Let me finish.” His mom turned her glare on Aten. “Really? You used me visiting against my son? Are you trying to drive a wedge between us? Make him avoid me? I won’t stand for it. Joe, as your mother, I want you to find a way to feed the people. As a businesswoman, make sure that the reward you get upon return is worth it, or else you make sure to hold onto the means of production and sell the food at a reasonable price. Outfit the operation yourself, and talk to me if you need a place to sell in the Kingdom. In a week or so, I’ll be taking over Odds and Ends and you can always sell through me.”

Aten looked aggrieved, and rubbed weary eyes. Then he locked eyes with Joe and said, “Twenty thousand contribution points.”

“Ten thousand points no matter what. I swear we’ll put plenty of effort into this, and we need to be compensated for that amount of time no matter what. Also. Outfit us for the trip, Aten.” Joe sighed and went over to give his mom a hug. “Give us two week’s worth of gear, I can't imagine that this’ll be a quick trip.”

“Deal.” Aten nodded his head and the notification appeared in Joe’s vision again. This time, the quest was accepted.